"Japanese Only"

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

While looking up info on Japanese festivals for This thread ( Name that Japanese festival.... - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board ) , I stumbled across a page on “Japanese Only” places.
Apparently there are businesses in Japan that do not want foreigners (or, in some cases, unescorted foreigners) to come in, and they’ll put ub unabashed signs stating this policy.
What gets me is that, judging from the pictures, some of these are pretty seedy or sorry businesses – escort agencies, or bars, or whatever.

http://www.debito.org/roguesgallery.html

Scroll about 1/3 down the page and you get a sign that says

                **Prohibit to goin with FOREIGN LADY Who are Waiting on the Lord**

…and apparently these aren’t carhops serving Jesus, but a mis-reading of “ladies waiting on the Road” – ie. Prostitutes. Can’t have them foriegn prostitutes in a Japanese “love hotel” – they’d ruin local standards.

Are these for real? Have any Dopers in Japan seen these signs?

2

They are for real, but they are by no means common. I have certainly never seen one personally and I live in the middle of nowhere. As you observed, they are often seen in businesses involving the sex trade. But Japan is not like Thailand or Cambodia or something. They don’t particularly want your money. The Japanese sex trade caters to the Japanese. The people who run these businesses (e.g. the yakuza) don’t want to deal with foreigners who don’t understand how the Japanese do business, basically. And of course, there is also plenty of racism there. The yakuza are associated with the racist extreme right wing nationalists in Japan. For example, I was looking at that sight and it mentioned there were some signs seen in Isesaki and Ohta, in Gunma. These are both seedy towns with bad reputations–lots of sex businesses and a lot of non-white immigrants (from Brazil and the Philippines). So racism has a chance to grow. Also note all the locations in Hokkaido, where a lot of Russian sailors end up (note signs are in Russian and sometimes spanish or portuguese or whatnot.)

The onsens and bars are probably just a similar story. They’ve had bad experiences with foreigners and they extrapolate it to everyone else. Not right, but these things are seldom tackled head on in Japan. (However a lot of those “bars” are part of the sex trade as well.)

3

Yup. There aren’t any antidiscrimination laws in Japan, so establishments are allowed to say “Japanese only.” For the most part, you don’t run into this on a daily basis, but there are some notable exceptions.

For the most part, Japanese don’t despise foreigners, but there are exceptions to the welcome wagon. Probably the biggest problem is renting apartments. That’s the first time I was ever clearly discriminated against. When my (now ex-)wife and I were looking for a place, she would go to the real estate agent first and get the OK, but when I showed up, suddenly every damn place was gone.

We walked into one agent’s office and asked about one of the apartments advertised in the window. Nope, it had be rented out that morning, and amazingly enough, he knew that without calling the listed agent. Same for all other places. I asked him why he was still advertising it when it was gone and he took pulled the paper off the window. I thoughtfully ripped it up into shreds for him and threw it away, along will every other already rented place.

I used to go out with a lady who lived off the income from a few apartments. She would hang out in Roppongi, the bar district where the gaijin (foreigners, especially whites) and was hoping to meet and marry a Western guy. The funny thing is that she wouldn’t rent to foreigners. She’d fuck them, but not rent to them, go figure.

That said, for the most part the outright discrimination shown in the cited site falls under two categories. The first are (mostly) Japanese style baths and similar establishments in Hokkaido, the northern island, where there are problems with Russian sailors. Many of the cited signs are in Russian. Apparently some normal establishments also discriminate against Russians, but I haven’t been there myself.

The second place where Japanese Only is frequently seen would be in the mizushoubai (lit. water business, various “night establishments” eg. Seedy businesses.) Japanese have their own quirks when it comes to mizushoubai, which for the most part involve charging far too much for less service than would be expected by reputable US governors.

This may be a language issue. Lacking the ability to explain to the more-often-than-not less-than-sober foreign customers that they can get a hand job, but absolutely nothing more, they simply say “No foreigners.” Or, if it’s a hostess club, no one has the ability to adequately tell the poor saps that regardless of the hundreds of dollars they just dropped, they’re not allowed to touch at all.

I was never into either of those scenes, but I’ve had a number of friends who have been kept out of these types of places. One friend remarked on the irony of once place which employed Philippine hostesses but still rejected foreign customers.

4

Scratches Japan off sex tour list. Dammit!

5

There are quite a few Japanese-style lounges in Bangkok, especially in a lane called Soi Thaniya, just a stone’s throw away from the notorious Patpong red-light district. A lot of farangs (Westerners) are under the impression these are Japanese-only and that farangs are not allowed in. That’s not really true here, though, in my experience. They think that way because it is true in Japan. But I’ve found they will let farangs in, although the setup is pretty much for Japanese businessmen, and quite honestly the average farang would find it boring. You basically pay a LOT of money to have a girl sit and chat with you for an hour or two. The drinks are expensive. Not most farangs’ scene.

6

There were a number of places in Misawa (far north, Aomori prefecture) that were Japanese-only. They seemed to be evenly placed between bars and restaurants. The restaurants were just run of the mill noodle shops, nothing special. I’m guessing the relatively large number of these places is due to the American military base there–even I was ashamed by the lack of cultural sensitivity my fellow countrymen showed.

7

A photo I took in the Okubo neighborhood of Tokyo:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmrocher2001/434966868/in/set-72157594557424169/

The building in question is a “Love hotel” which have rooms available for the night or for 3-hour “rests”. Despite the seedy image, many are actually rather nice inside and well-maintained. The sign is in regard to foreign prostitutes working the streets, which used to be fairly common in Okubo, but now they’re nowhere to be found. The neighborhood still has plenty of love hotels (used by couples or guys hiring call girls), but this was the only one that had this sign. Also, there are no restrictions on foreign guests. The main purpose of the signs wasn’t keeping the interior foreigner-free, but to discourage prostitutes from hanging around outside.

8

It should be noted that the Japanese part of the sign is clearer that they are discouraging prostitutes.

I went to one in PI when I was working short-term with a Japanese company there. They didn’t keep need to keep it Japanese-only, as it would be too expensive for the locals and not provide enough excitement for Westerns looking for more.

9

Are you sure they just don’t want you shacking up with nuns? :stuck_out_tongue:

10

Exactly. Same here.